An eight-grade class at Almaden Country Day School in San Jose, California, was presented with an advanced opportunity to design and 3D print a prosthetic hand for a third grader, Trent DeSantis, who was born without a fully formed right hand. NBC News' Maya Eaglin reports.
Read the transcript of the video below:
In this classroom at Almaden Country Day School in San Jose, California, these eighth graders are learning the basics of 3d printing and modeling. So what I want you guys to do is work on this mold parts. But they were presented with an advanced opportunity when the mother of a third grade student in the same school as teacher Joanne Papini, if the class could set it for her son, Trent, who was born without a fully formed right hand. And in my mind, I'm like, yeah, that that'll be nice for college and high school kids, but I wanted to do something with it. One of the pieces for the hand middle schooler Sarah Bender up for the challenge. At first, I was a little unsure, because I've never made a hand before. With some help from online instructions, Sarah and her classmates got to work on their own prosthetic prototype. So this is our failure box, working for a whole month to improve their design. I really wanted to make sure it was perfect, because I knew that this would change his life if it went well and all that hard work paying off. So really that it works. I was like, Yes, it works. The hand even made in the colors of the San Jose Sharks Trent's favorite hockey team. I felt happy, and I was super excited to show my class, thrilled to show off his new hand to his class. We were crying. We were all we just we were just ecstatic. We're running around and trends running up fighting. The kids are high fiving him. And, you know, everybody was just emailing me and crying, and I've tears and even a surprise visit from the sharks mascot. This one. We're What started as an elected class, now inspiring Sarah, proving her work can help others. Saw that he was so happy, and it made me feel so good that I was able to do so that did help him so much. And yeah, I definitely think that I want to pursue that.